


cold hands; warm hearts

by coffeesuperhero



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Fluff, River/Doctor Ficathon, Tropes, cuddling for warmth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-02
Updated: 2013-06-02
Packaged: 2017-12-13 17:32:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/826929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeesuperhero/pseuds/coffeesuperhero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor's idea of a relaxing warm beach holiday does not go as planned. Luckily, River's on hand to warm things up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	cold hands; warm hearts

**Author's Note:**

> For [mostexcellentcanopy](http://mostexcellentcanopy.tumblr.com)! Part of the River/Doctor Fluff Ficathon.

A beach had been the natural choice for this latest little adventure, really. Beaches mean sand and sun-- suns, really, the best beaches are always on planets with multiple suns-- and usually someone selling little souvenirs or interesting food or even better, _really cool hats_. As an added bonus, it's _new_ fun, as he's never seen River on a beach. New fun with River is always exciting, even if it does typically mean that he does a good deal of _blushing_ , though at some point during whatever it is she thinks up for them to do, he always forgets to remember to blush. 

He did lose a few minutes after a whole manner of interesting thoughts had occurred to him about what she might possibly _wear_ on a beach, but fortunately dear old Sexy knows how to find whichever River he needs when he needs her, and very shortly his wife is off in one of the closets in the TARDIS looking for suitable beach attire while they hurtle towards their destination.  
He is somewhat disappointed when she comes 'round the corner wearing a long loose dress and a life vest, but then she gives him one of her saucier winks as she saunters toward him, and he gulps and adjusts the lapels of his brightly coloured shirt. 

"I always knew the TARDIS liked me," River says, giving the console a loving stroke with her hand as she passes by, "but she's really outdone herself with what's under this particular outfit." 

"You don't say," he says, sidling closer to her. He looks her up and down until she shivers. 

"Show me yours and I'll show you mine," she says, but before anything interesting can happen, she takes a step back and surveys his attire. "What in the name of sanity are you wearing?"

"It's a Hawaiian shirt, it's cool," he says, gesturing down at his colorful button-up shirt. "Literally cool. Look, it's practically _breezy_." He whirls around on one foot and his shirt billows out around him as he goes. River looks on, amused. 

"As you like," she says, quirking an eyebrow at him. "It isn't as though you're going to be wearing it all that long, anyway." 

He sputters after her as she heads for the door, hips swaying with promise; he scrambles to catch her up. 

"The whole point of surprising you, River Song," he says, sweeping in front of her to lounge across the doorway, "is that you're _surprised_ where I can see it." 

"After you then, sweetie," she says, waiting for him to open the door, which he does with a flourish.

As soon as they tumble outside, however, it becomes very apparent that something has gone terribly awry. Possibly several somethings, if he includes the sudden disappearance of the TARDIS along with all the ice and snow in place of warm sand and gentle sunlight. 

"No, no, no, no," he says, gesticulating wildly in the empty space where the TARDIS had been moments before. 

"This is the sprawling beach paradise of New New California, is it," River says drolly, peering across the icy shoreline in front of them. "I think boating may be out of the question, sweetie." 

"Yes, well. It appears to have frozen over in the centuries since I last visited," he says, scratching idly at his cheek. "I was not expecting this." 

"Of course you weren't, dear, you never use the scanner. And why, my love, is the TARDIS gone?" River asks. She huddles closer and shoves her hands into the pockets of her life vest. 

"She probably thinks she's being _helpful_ ," he grumbles, and River raises an eyebrow. 

"Oh?" 

He waves his hands between them in a manner he hopes is suitably descriptive of the various and sundry things he and River have managed to get up to over the years. A blush creeps up his cheek, warm despite the freezing cold of the air around them. "You, me, an abandoned beach in the eighty-third century, anything could happen, in her estimation. She should be back shortly." 

"Bless," River says, but as the minutes tick by with the temperature dropping in increasingly large increments and no TARDIS waiting, ready to transport them away to warmer climes, River's expression turns from fondness to worry. "Sweetie?" 

"It's fine, everything's perfectly fine," he assures her, and River, blessedly, does not mention Rule One, though she does shake her head skeptically and pull her scanner from her life vest.

"You've lost the TARDIS, haven't you," River says. 

"She's not lost!" he protests, waving his hands. "She's just _temporally misplaced_." 

"Translation: lost," River says, and he huffs at her, but she's busily scanning their surroundings and she misses his grumpy face entirely, which is somewhat disappointing. Surely half the fun of marriage is license to be grumpy at someone. "We are stranded on a planet where the temperatures are rapidly approaching the lowest recorded temperature at which life may survive. We have no blankets, no heat source, and no means of escape."

"Well, yes, if you want to focus on the _negative_ aspects of the situation," he says, managing somehow to flail about in a manner that is both fretful _and_ pompous. It's a difficult combination of emotions to pull off, but he likes to think he does it with a certain amount of _panache_. He's had centuries of practise, it would be a damn shame if he hadn't perfected it by now. 

"Doctor," River snaps, and he whirls about to look at her. 

"Yes, yes, impossible situation, trapped, no TARDIS, slow death inevitable, working on it," he says, turning about in the snow. "We'll get it sorted. One thing that worries me, though, River." 

Her hair vibrates with exasperation. "All of that, and there's only _one_ thing that worries you?" 

He leans in closer and taps her nose with one long finger. "Why haven't you suggested we keep each other warm?" 

She smiles as she presses her body against his. "Because, dear. You'll make that face, and I wanted the time to savor it properly," she says. 

"Which face?" 

"The _she's hot when she's clever_ face," she says, and he grins down at her when the crook of her smile lets him know that she _remembers_ that line. With their backwards wibbly-wobbly life, it isn't often that they crash into one another in a timeline where they both know these things, and he wants to keep this moment, drink in it even as the snow keeps falling steadily on both of them, distracting them from each other. River's fingertips brush his cheekbone briefly, and he brings his hand up to cover her colder fingers with his own. "Oh, yes. That's the face I mean." 

"This is my normal face," he remembers to say, feeling at his chin, just to be sure. 

"I know," she drawls. Her hand on his cheek is shaking, reminding him that it's too cold for either of them. 

It is actually freezing, in point of fact: River has the right of it, they need to get out of here, and quickly. But somehow, River has a way of chasing away the chill, and with her next to him the cold and the ice and the snow around them fade into the background until she has to remind him again of their predicament. 

"Sweetie," she says, flexing cold fingers against his wrist, "if you had a plan to get us out of here, I'd love to hear about it. I don't particularly relish the irony of dying in a life vest." 

"River Song, you are a genius," he exclaims, kissing her soundly before making for the zip of her vest. 

"It's not that I mind you undressing me, sweetie, but--" 

"This isn't any old life vest," he explains, pulling his sonic from the pocket of his completely cool colorful Hawaiian shirt. "It's of Taran manufacture." 

River taps away at her scanner. "The planet with all the androids?" 

"The very same," he crows. "Absolutely everything they built had some kind of circuitry, and if I can just tap into the right frequency, I think that I can-- aha!" 

He lets go of the vest just as it reshapes itself into a reasonable facsimile of a tent. He grins and tugs down the zip, standing aside to let her go first, rubbing his hands together as much in delight over his own cleverness as he does for warmth. 

"It's not exactly as good as a warm fire, but it should keep us safe from the elements until the TARDIS decides she wants to rescue us, at any rate," he says, ushering River inside.

"Oh, I could bloody kiss you," she says, once she's out of the wind.

"Maybe when you're older," he tells her, grinning, but as soon as they're settled and he's closed the tent back up, he turns and presses his lips to hers. "Well. You are at least thirty seconds older than you were." 

The little tent is not entirely large enough to accommodate both of them, but they do the best they can, tucking themselves against one another. He wraps her up in his arms and holds her against his chest. This may not be the sunny beach holiday he had planned, but an afternoon spent holding his wife is surely an afternoon well spent, even if he has to spend it with time marching _in order_. 

Typically, he would find the mere thought of linear hours with no running or other excitement to be entirely too excruciating to contemplate, but River is warm and perfect and alive next to him, curled tendrils of her magnificent hair tickling at his chin and cheeks, and he finds as the minutes stretch out before them, he doesn't mind this at all. The wind screams outside, but the tent holds, and they hold each other. There are far worse things in the universe, certainly, than an afternoon of this. He should know, surely; he's been the cause of so many of them, but before he can lapse into melancholy, River's careful fingers on his cheek tip his face towards hers, her kiss warming him all the way through. 

"Stay with me," she says gently. 

"Always," he promises, shifting them around so he can kiss her properly, one of his hands caressing her cheek, the other pressed against the small of her back to hold her close. The minutes slip past, but he forgets to keep track of them. 

River yawns and stretches against him. "Mmm. This reminds me of Christmas 1947," she says, sighing contentedly. "There's a huge blizzard in New York that year. Mum and I will beat you and Dad rather soundly in that snowball fight, I might add." 

"I don't remember that," he says, frowning down at her. "And you know we can't go--"

"Shh. Spoilers," she says, laying her fingers over his mouth, eyes sparkling. "I've said more than I should already. Though I don't mind telling you that you enjoyed your consolation prize." 

"I think you just want to ensure that you and Amy win the snowball fight," he huffs, just to distract himself from contemplating River's idea of a _consolation prize_. This tent is really not large enough for even the thought of it, and certainly not large enough for the, ah, _execution_. 

River laughs, a low, mellow sound. "Mum and I didn't need the insurance of predestination to beat the two of you. Tragic, really, to see the Centurion and the Doctor _so_ soundly defeated." 

"Good old Rory," he says. "How did he take our defeat?" 

He can't see River's smile, but he can feel it in his hearts. There's a story here that he's more than ready to live, loath as he is to rush these rare moments with her.

"Oh, you know Dad," River says, and he smiles at the ease with which she says it, hoping that whatever spoilers River has in store for him this time, it means she's managed to spend a little more time with both her parents. "Mum was perfectly delighted, and therefore so was he." 

"No shame in losing to the two of you, I suppose, if we had to lose," he says. 

"His sentiments exactly," she says. "I think you both knew that you hadn't much of a chance when you signed on." 

"Of course not. Not against the Fighting Ponds, anyway," he says. 

"I think that includes you now, you know, Mister Doctor Song," she laughs.

"That isn't how that works," he tells her, but he's smiling. All attempts at marital grumpiness have been entirely overtaken by a totally unexpected but entirely welcome marital bliss; he is too content to fight against the well of warm feeling in his chest, wrapping around his hearts. 

"Yes it is," she corrects, kissing him again, and he nods and rests his forehead against hers. 

"Yeah, it is," he agrees. He grins down at her. "But I'm a lover, not a fighter, Professor Song." 

"I believe I could stand a bit more proof of that," she says, wriggling suggestively next to him. "Husband, I have a request." 

The temperature in the tent has risen several degrees. Of that much he is certain. 

"Yes, wife?" he manages to ask.

With a devilish smile-- always one of his favourites, really, though he doesn't remember having ever told her-- River leans up, the smooth fabric of her dress catching against his shirt buttons. The words she whispers in his ear make his face burn and his eyes widen; he isn't entirely certain the tent would survive it, but he's certainly willing to give it a go.

"Well," he squeaks, shivering, but not from the cold. "That would certainly keep us warm." 

It does, of course, though warm is perhaps not an accurate representation of it, especially given the neckline on the swimsuit River has been hiding under her dress. Hot would be better. _Sizzling_ , even. 

River's ideas, unlike his own, usually _do_ go according to plan, though whether by careful planning or the sheer force of her indomitable will, he really couldn't say. The TARDIS comes back to them sometime after he's fulfilled every request of River's with which his body will comply in the space they are allotted, but they don't return to the bright sanctuary of the TARDIS immediately. He doesn't say it aloud, but he hopes that she knows that there are not many people in the entirety of time and space for whom he is content to be still, to wait, to _rest_. 

"The feeling is mutual, sweetie," she says, breaking into his thoughts. 

"Hmm?" 

"I'm not much for resting either," she reminds him. "When have you ever known me to be?" 

"You're usually running along with me, causing trouble," he muses, tracing endearments in various languages onto her bare shoulder. _Yowza_ is rather curiously rendered in Gallifreyan, and she snorts when she realises what he's about. He reaches for her hand, running his thumb over her fingers when they curl around his own. "I suppose, River Song, that the universe should be grateful that we are for each other and not for other people." 

"I know I certainly am," she says. She lifts her head from his chest. "Should we be going? We might actually arrive here at the time you intended, if we try again." 

"No," he says, his fingers in her hair. "Let's stay awhile longer." 

"All right," she says easily, settling against him again. 

The weather outside may indeed be frightful, as the old standard goes, but this is a memory that will warm them both as the centuries pass. The beach can wait. They have time.


End file.
